Day five: last activities and farewell party

So...It was our last day and everybody were sad. But before saying goodbye to each other we also had some activities.

Our first activity was "Open Space activity". We had a possibility to tell others about our experience in any topic. So how did we choosed those 4 people? Everybody wrote a topic they wanted to share with others and then everybody voted for the most interesting topic. After that those who were chosen to share experience had some time to find some materials they needed and think about what they want to say to others. Then other participants were divided on 4 groups. After a few time they were changing. So all groups have visited all 4 participants who were sharing an experience.

After small break we had another activity. We had to make an action plan in our countries. We thought about what we will do, when, our target group and our goals. After we finished we had to present our plan. It was our last activity in this project before evaluation and self-assessment. 

In the evening we got our youthpasses. The way we got them was very interesting. One volunteer came to the table where youthpasses were and took one and had to say something about the persor who was expected to get this youthpass. But volunteer wasn't saying the name of this person and others had to understand who about volunteer was talking. And it was about all participants.

  

After we had a farewell party where we were playing, chilling, drinking and eating. And everybody were saying goodbye to each other.

Day four: youth participation and developing new methods

What? How? Why? These were the main three questions we started our day 4 – 8th of June, 2017 in Vidrike. We are working with youth, or are on a way to work with them and we are putting our hearts to this every day, though we sometimes forget to ask ourselves these three questions regarding the work with youth.

This time we didn't try to find answers to these questions based on our organisation and our-work-connected people, but at our personal level. What are you personally doing during your days? How do you do it, which kind of tools do you have, what kind of resources do you use? And most important question is WHY do you do it? How do you keep up the good work and motivation every single day? What is the aim of doing it? These were the questions to find answers in our first session.

Nobody will ever get great in something without guidance, without trainer or a coach giving you some directions and tips. Particularly coaching was the main thing that we had a chance to practice during the second session. We gathered within the group people, that we feel the most comfortable to be with, mapped what we are doing every day and what are the main problems occurred so far. We were not only mentioning the problems, but we were also going deeper – what are the main reasons, that are the goals, obstacles, why and how these problems occurred and what are the main options to solve them. Because it is hard to ,,erase´´ them instantly, we were trying to come out with possible long-term solutions. It was definitely a great opportunity to open ourselves to the others and to think about possible solutions which could really work in our actual situation.

After that we were asked to create our own new method of active youth participation. It had to be something realistic that we can actually use in our own organisations. We were divided into groups of 5 members each and we had around 90 minutes to come up with our idea and develop it into complete description of our method. Our group chose a method addressing the need to practice critical thinking. Using this method youngsters can develop their experience in critical thinking and therefore we can increase its use among young people. After that each team had to share it´s own method with the others and also to post it to the facebook group so everybody can use it after the course in the future work.

Luckily, we had again a beautiful, not really typical Estonian weather, so we could also explore peaceful and soul-nourishing surrounding of our training course place in Vidrike. 

On this day, we had probably the most important thing during the whole project, the main event, which can be even considered as a sightseeing by the foreign people from abroad of Estonia – THE SAUNAPARTY! While sauna is normal for Estonians, it was really interesting to see how foreigners (because for some of them it was the very first time in sauna) took the preparations for it (drinking water to no get dehydrated etc) and were asking serious questions about it to educate themselves. Some of us were even so brave, that we jumped from the sauna directly to lake:

We have a really cool bunch of people here and I am pretty sure that some great projects and cooperation will be generated here during these days for our future work within the field of youth work. But while working hard on our professional development during these days, we don´t forget to have a fun! You can see it also in following energizer ;) :

Day three: sharing good practices and study visit to Tartu

As usually in the morning we had our breakfast time. Then, because of some delay coming to the usual meeting, some of us had to make "butt spelling" of their names as a "punishment" by the rest of group members. Then, we made an energizer using pillows after we split in two teams. After that, the trainers made some comments for yesterday's feedback. The comments were about the requests we all made and how we can deal with them. After the comments, get to the first session. The task on this session was to choose a person we now less than others and split in groups of two. Then the one person spoke for about five minutes and the other was only listening. Then, the second person sum up what he/she listened about three minutes.

After we finished that, we changed roles and did the same task. Then, we all sat in the circle and shared our feelings and thoughts about this task. Some people felt nice, some others understood how difficult is to listen without interrupting and also listening so much information in so little time. After that, we answered the question "how often do we listen the young people we work with". After answering the question, we went back with the same person and had a discussion about what we have learnt from this task we made before (with the active listening).

Before we get into the second session we had a ten minutes break. The second session started with a game while the volunteers prepared to meet as in the other room. We designed groups and go to 4 different "cafes". There, we discussed four different topics as a group and wrote down our thoughts. While discussions, people from the cafes, politely brought us what we ordered like coffees, magic juice etc. Also, on each table there was a facilitator who facilitated the discussion. After that, we met all together and shared the final thoughts from all topics. Then, we had our lunch and prepared for our visit to Tartu.

In afternoon we had a study visit in Tartu where we had a conversation with two mobile youth workers about their organization and how they deal with youngsters. 

After that we had free time to visit the town, have coffee and spend our time as you liked. After that we came back to Vildrike, had our dinner and prepared for the second intercultural night. In the second intercultural night we learn more about Luxembourg, Slovakia, Germany, Latvia, through presentations, games etc. Then, we tasted their traditional products closing the night with a nice way.

 

Day two: quality Erasmus+ projects

Firstly, in the morning we had reflection. The facilitators announced us the feedback they received from us the previous day. After they gave us the opportunity to create our diary in order to write down how it was the previous day, our thoughts, feelings and next goals.  It was a really nice experience to make our diary because everyone made it in its own different and creative way.

After that, we were divided in groups in order to do a task, which was about learning the characteristics of non-formal learning.  We had different statements and we had to separate them in YES (it is characteristic of non-formal learning) or NO (it is not characteristic of non-formal learning).  Moreover, we had different examples of informal, formal and non-formal learning so we had also statements to put to these in three categories.

After coffee break we had session about 8 key competences and Youthpass. We had 8 different tasks which were referred in 8 key competences (competence meaning:  1.knowledge, 2. skills 3. attitude). So, we separated in 8 teams and then we had to discuss them in our team.  One person of each team had to be an expert of his/her topic in order to explain to the other persons of the other teams.  So, to be achieved this, we transformed into three groups of eight people so each group was consisted of an expert from previous group.

Then, we watched a video for Youthpass.

Also, we did a 《Name Game》 again, in order to refresh our memory of the name of each person :)

Afternoon, we were talking about youth exchanges, EVS, mobility of youth workers, strategic partnerships (also about transnational youth initiatives) and capacity building projects  and how these processes are working.  We separated in three groups so we had the chance to talk to the responsible person of each "box" in order to find out more information and solve our queries.

After this activity, we had to answer some questions through a kahoot for Erasmus+ quiz.

Then, we also talked about e-participation.  After this each group prepared two examples of this kind of participation.

At the night, we had the intercultural night where Cyprus, Lithuania, Italy and Estonia presented their countries in different ways (quiz, videos, answering questions, songs).

Finally, the night was followed by sharing traditional food of each country with each other.

Day one: getting to know each other and into the topic

This Block is dedicated to all the members taking part in the Seminar "From Passive to Active: New Approaches in Youth Participation". There are several groups who will post on this block about what they experienced in this seminar.

So let's begin with our group! 

Blogger Group 1

Here some details about our very first day in VIDRIKE PUHKEMAJA (Estonia).

First of all we want to say that the location is just amazing. Nice view, really quiet place, good food and nice people working here doing everything so that we have all what we need.

So a BIIIIG THANK YOU TO THE KITCHEN PERSONAL and CLEANING PERSONAL and VOLUNTEERS, you're doing great work.

Our Day of training course began how it should be began: with a great breakfast to get the energy for the day. After breakfast we had our first introduction of the training course.

There is a biiig time table on the wall in the seminar room so we can all take a look at what we are doing and when we are doing it. Of course after the small introduction of our plans we also did some "Getting to know each other" games and energizers, which some of us already knew because of the experience of participating in seminars or training courses, but they are always a must so the whole group will fit together.

First game was about telling your name and and adjective beginning with the same letter as your name. For example I was Astonishing Andy, so the others had to repeat the names and keep telling the adjectives.

A second game which was more interesting was "Catching the called" Here one chair was free and the one on the right side of this chair had to call someone of the group. This one had to try escaping as fast as possible from his chair and run to the empty chair. Nice refreshing game.

After those games, we had to split into groups. The groups were split by Estonian counting 1 to 5 (üks, kaks, kolm, neli, viis). (So we learned a little bit Estonian language at the same time ;) )

The task was to create rules for the training course. There were quite some nice rules created. (example: language rule BORA BORA, Respect the others, keep it clean, don't use phone during the sessions...)

After making the rules we got some post it notes: 3 pink ones and 3 yellow ones. On the pink ones we had to write down our personal interests of participating in the seminar. On the yellow ones our professional ones. After we wrote those down, we had to post them on the biiiig timetable where we think we reached our interests.

Then we got the nice NEWS that we should create a BLOG ;)

After that information we had an introduction of a secret friend game. Here everyone writes down his/her name and then everyone must take a Name, the Person on that paper is then your secret friend and you have to try to make this friend feel good without him/her noticing that you are his/her secret friend.

After all those nice games and introductions, LUNCHTIME ^_^

After lunch we were going outside even with Estonian summer weather (which means it rained outside ;) ) The objective this time was to go for a walk outside and we got some questions we had to ask the people around us. Then we had to exchange questions so it was some advanced getting-to-know-each-other game. AND I have to admit it was really nice being outside taking breathing fresh air, seeing Estonian nature and talking to the different people of the seminar. NICE activity even with some rain...

And after this activity we had of course a nice COFFEE Break with hot tea and coffee.

After this amazing break, we came together again to make 4 different groups again. The groups had to present active participation in different ways. We had to improvise a small act of what is active participation.

After that we built feedback groups which will be the same the whole week. One in the group should be the interpreter and group leader for the feedback and one should be the journalist (we can also change roles). So our Main objective was to answer personally some questions in our group and the journalist wrote down all the information. Then the journalist had to go to a meeting with trainers.

DINNER Time

After dinner my favorite thing happened: we went swimming. It was raining and the lake was about only 10° C but jumping into the late was still a nice experience. I think I was the only NOT ESTONIAN one that jumped into the lake ^_^ It was a refreshing experience ;)

After the dinner we had a organization market where everybody could introduce their organizations. . Interesting Thing because after the introduction we could collect more information going to the people from who we wanted more information. And we got some small beverages to feel good.

After that it was KARAOKE and GAMING Night

That's it for the first day, it was amazing and fun day. Let's hope it will go on like that :D

"From Passive to Active: New Approaches to Youth Participation!" Introduction

Just a short overview of the project :)


Mobility of youth workers – training course

Organized by: Seiklejate Vennaskond in cooperation with Estonian national agency of Erasmus+ programme

Project dates: 4 th to 10th June 2017

The main aim of the training course is to train youth workers so they are able to create new ways of active youth participation in civil society.

Training course allows participants to:

• learn how to develop and implement Erasmus+ projects 
• make contacts and find partners for international activities 
• develop common understanding for the need of active youth participation and how to support it
• learn about new youth participation approaches, develop new methods for youth participation and create an implementation plan for their local reality 
• learn about good quality youth projects and the logic of international projects 
• start developing cooperation ideas in the framework of Erasmus+ programme 

All methods used during the training course will be non-formal, such as group works, individual tasks, creative tasks, plays, quizzes, study visits etc. Methods will learner-centred and will take into account the learning needs of the participants.

Participants can learn about good practices in youth participation, share their experiences and together with colleagues from 10 countries develop new and innovative methods to foster youth participation. They will build up a solid plan how to implement these new methods and strategies back home with their youngsters and learn how to engage, involve and keep young people motivated over a long period of time. Additionally they learn to understand the logics of international activities, opportunities of Erasmus+ programme and have a chance for networking and finding partners for international cooperation.